


Congratulations

by kethni



Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: Drunken Flirting, F/M, request fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28366002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kethni/pseuds/kethni
Summary: ‘Do you have to be drunk to talk to me?’‘Sure.’
Relationships: Kent Davison/Sue Wilson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Congratulations

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to crazymaryt for the suggestion

Sue was quite enjoying the shutdown. She was working but there were far fewer staffers, aides, and visitors then there would have otherwise been. Fewer people meant less distractions. Sue did not dislike _work_ , Sue worked extremely hard, she disliked _distractions_. With few distractions Sue was getting a lot more done. It would have been relaxing, if it wasn’t for the garbage piling up in the streets and like.

The fact that someone like _Jonah_ could derail the entire country was a stinging indictment of the political system, in Sue’s opinion. Although after working for two different presidents, her opinion of politics and politicians was cynical in the extreme.

She picked up a bottle of wine on her way home and put it in the fridge to chill while she started drawing a bath. It had been the latest long day in a whole series of long days.

She plugged her work phone in to charge. The notification light was flashing but she ignored it. Her personal phone wasn’t flashing. Anything work related could wait until the following morning. She had long since passed the days when she was eager, or even willing, to throw herself into extra work. There was always more work and the reward for doing good work was being given more work.

She took out a prepared meal from the freezer and put it on a plate to defrost. Then she poured herself a large glass of wine, went into the bathroom, got undressed, and got into the bath.

Steam rose from the hot water, filling the air. Sue sipped her wine and lay back in the bath. She was going to have to make sure that she didn’t fall asleep this time. She smiled slightly as she remembered Kent laughing at her for her annoyance when she got her hair wet falling asleep in the bath. That had been the middle of their brief relationship. In the beginning he had been too awed to laugh at her and at the end he had been too irritated.

She wondered why he was the one she thought of particularly. Perhaps it was simply that he had been in her orbit again, in the news again, because of the shutdown. They hadn’t spoken. He had been accompanying Jonah and Jonah had spoken to her. Kent and Ben had both looked as though they would rather be somewhere, anywhere, else. That was before Ben was fired of course.

Sue enjoyed the rest of her glass of wine, sinking deeper into the water, eyes closed. She didn’t fall asleep, although it was a close thing. She stayed until the water began to slowly cool. Then she groaned at the unfairness of thermodynamics and got out of the bath. She dried off, wrapped herself up in a thick, warm robe, and slid her feet into her slippers. She padded into the bedroom and changed into her sweats. It wasn’t something that she would have felt comfortable wearing around most of the men that she had dated. The cost of being perfect was _having_ to be perfect. Being perfect could be exhausting.

She wasn’t complaining. She _never_ complained. Nobody would ever say that she was someone who complained.

Kent had tried to tell her that relaxing, allowing herself not to be perfect, was also a kind of perfection. Only a mathematician would think something like that. He had once tried to explain some frankly lunatic mathematic theory that two times two was less than four.

Sue microwaved her dinner and took it into the living room. She curled up on the sofa and turned on the television. She was always too tired, physically and emotionally, at the end of a workday to watch narrative television. Even documentaries could be too draining. She would never _admit_ to watching “reality” television, but there was something relaxing about watching monumentally stupid people constantly shocked to find out that their monumentally stupid actions had consequences. Sue had certain views about most of humanity and she appreciated having those views reaffirmed.

She was irritated then when her personal phone rang. She scowled as she turned down the volume but didn’t pause the programme.

_Kent Davison Calling_

Sue pursed her lips and put her plate to one side. If this was work related, then she was going to be extremely annoyed.

‘Are you attempting a booty call?’ she demanded.

In the several seconds of silence that followed she suddenly thought that his cell being used didn’t necessarily mean that he was the one calling. There was a _lot_ of background noise. What if he’d had an accident and the police were calling? Or worse?

‘Would that work?’ Kent asked finally.

She rolled her eyes. ‘How drunk are you?’

‘On what scale?’ he asked. ‘Strictly numerical or literary references or –’

‘Can you walk in a straight line without falling over?’ she interrupted.

‘Absolutely,’ he said with a certainty that made her doubt it. ‘I’ve had… five whiskeys.’

Sue turned around and lay down on the sofa. ‘Is working for Jonah driving you to drink?’

He gave a throaty chuckle. It was a more… pleasing sound then she would have thought likely and more pleasing than she was likely to admit.

‘Not anymore,’ he said.

‘You have drunk five whiskeys,’ she said. ‘At least, plus however many you aren’t admitting.’

‘But I’m not working for him anymore,’ he almost sang.

Sue sat up a little. ‘You quit?’

He laughed. ‘He fired me.’

‘Congratulations,’ she said, and found that she actually meant it.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

Sue looked up at the ceiling. ‘Why did you call me?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, more quietly. ‘I had good news and… you were the person I wanted to share it with.’

‘Not Ben?’ she teased.

Kent made a noise she couldn’t quite place. ‘He saw it on the news and insisted on us going out to celebrate.’

‘It’s on the news?’

‘Jonah is holding the country to ransom,’ Kent said. ‘Now he’s fired all his advisors. Lots of speculation going on. Blah, blah, boring.’

‘That does sound boring,’ she agreed.

‘You’re always mad when I’m on the news,’ he said cheerfully.

‘I don’t see _why_ anyone wants to put you on the news,’ she grumbled. ‘You’re very boring.’

‘I miss you.’

Sue bit her lower lip. She picked up a pillow and held it tight against her chest. ‘You’re drunk.’

‘So?’ he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

Sue closed her eyes. ‘Is that why you called me?’

‘I wanted to call you, so I called you,’ he said. ‘I wanted to hear your voice.’

‘You saw me on Wednesday,’ she said, but it was barely a protest. ‘You could’ve spoken to me then.’

‘I wasn’t drunk then,’ he said.

Sue raised her eyebrows. ‘Do you have to be drunk to talk to me?’

‘Sure.’

‘Why?’

She heard him sigh.

‘You’re not always the most approachable,’ he said meekly.

She rolled her eyes. ‘I have no interest in being “approachable.” I don’t _want_ people approaching me.’

‘Does that include me?’ he asked quietly.

Sue played with the cushion. ‘Ask me when you’re sober,’ she said finally.

‘What will you say?’

‘If I tell you, then you calling to ask won’t be any kind of a test.’

The background noise on his call rose steeply and he had to raise his voice to be heard.

‘This is a test?’

‘You’re no use to any woman you can only talk to when you’re drunk,’ she said severely.

There was a long pause before he answered. ‘Okay.’

‘Why on earth did it take you so long to decide that?’

‘It didn’t. I was setting up a reminder,’ he protested. ‘I don’t want to risk forgetting.’

Sue smiled. That was more the level of attention that she deserved. ‘Goodnight, Kent.’

‘Oh, are we done?’

‘Yes. Go and stop Ben from dancing on top of tables or whatever nonsense he’s doing.’

She heard him sigh quietly.

‘Goodnight Sue,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

She thumbed off the cell phone and put it to one side. ‘You better,’ she said.

The End.


End file.
